First drive: 2012 Audi S8

Super-sedan worthy of respect

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: October 20, 2011

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Pamplona, Spain • Pity the poor A8 – it truly is the Rodney Dangerfield of luxury cars. Four generations on, aluminum space frame and all and it still can’t get respect. I got limo’d around in a long-wheelbase Audi recently, all creamy comfort and posh circumstance. On complimenting my erstwhile Jeeves (he was actually Punjabi, but he was getting into character) on his choice of rides, he agreed the Audi was the class of the field. His only lament was that it did not impress the hoi polloi, whom, when returning from their motivational retreat/holiday cruise/dirty weekend, felt it underwhelming to brag that they had been chauffeured about in an Audi. The company’s flotilla of Audis, therefore, was being replaced by Mercedes’ S-Class, which, though he felt it markedly inferior, has long established its envy-generating bona fides.

Part of the reason for the A8’s relative lack of grandiloquence is that Audi has not forcefully foisted its flagship upon North Americans. Oh, we grasp it’s a fine car, but while it’s all about performance and technology in Europe — where the A8 is fairly popular — Audi has never really understood how far pomp and pretension goes in North America.

The first sign it did get it was the last-generation, optioned-to-the-max S8, Audi’s quasi-answer to Mercedes’ S63 AMG. Powered by a V10 (loosely associated with the one that powers Lamborghinis), the 2006 to 2010 S8 was luxurious, sexy and, with 450 horsepower under the hood, oh so very rapid. It also had the mother of all stereos, a way-trick Bang & Olufsen affair so superior it was like driving along in your very own mobile amphitheatre.

Compared with its more established Teutonic competition, the S8 might not have generated quite all the pretension, but it surely had most of the pomp. Now comes the 2012 remake and, if the first S8 was a slightly more than subtle nudge in the right direction, the new one is a giant kick in the hind end. Like BMW, Audi has figured out that high-revving, mega-horsepower V10s may scream delightfully, but they also suck gas with an Obama-infuriating thirst. Better, then, is a smaller-displacement V8 turbocharged within an inch of its life (an Audi specialty by now) that is even more mega-horsepower. Yes, though it displaces only 4.0 litres, the new Audi S8 boasts 520 horsepower, the German manufacturers’ recent fascination with twin turbochargers making a mockery of the old 100-hp-per-litre measuring stick.

Unlike the previous V10, which always loudly announced its presence, the new S8’s twin-turbo V8 is far more subdued. Subdued, that is, until the telephone poles start flying by at a positively alarming rate. Audi claims the aluminum-but-still-a-tad-lardy 1,975-kilogram S8 accelerates to 100 kilometres an hour in just 4.2 seconds and, while some of that can be credited to the new eight-speed automatic transmission, know that this is yet another hell-for-strong turbocharged engine that spits out torque like it’s the cheapest commodity on Earth. Incredibly, like the CLS 63 AMG and BMW’s M5, Audi’s switch to turbocharging was necessitated by a search for better fuel economy.

More economical it almost certainly will be. Though Transport Canada figures are not yet available, Audi says the turbocharged V8 is good for 23 miles per gallon in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s overall driving cycle (10.2 L/100 km in the European cycle), hardly exemplary by Prius standards but positively frugal and a 23% decrease compared with the outgoing V10’s 17 mpg (13.2 L/100 km). Not satisfied with simply downsizing the size of the motor, the new V8 also deactivates four of its eight cylinders (I wonder if Audi has to pay Cadillac a patent fee here?) under light load conditions. And then, just to show you why those crazy Germans are at the top of the automotive food chain, they designed an Active Noise Cancellation system and some computerized engine mounts to suppress any noise and vibration that might stem from having those four pistons lollygagging about. I don’t know if this is the sublime or the ridiculous, but it certainly is impressive.

The S8’s chassis gets all manner of high tech doohickeys as well, foremost among them a variable air suspension system that can alter the ride height by as much as 30 millimetres. There are also five driving modes — comfort, auto, dynamic, individual and efficiency — to allow the driver to further fine-tune the ride.

Dynamic is the sportiest calibration and as evinced by my haring around hairpins, more than competent enough to see off all manner of smaller, supposedly more sporty cars. At a typical hot-dogging pace, the S8 feels nigh on perfect, the steering feedback rewarding, the brakes responsive without being touchy and the transmission calibration always keeping the 4.0L in the meat of its powerband.

Wick it up to seriously stupid, however, and there’s more body roll than you’d like, not to mention the typical Audi understeer. I know this because Audi actually let us beat up the poor S8 on a race track — the Circuito de Navarra — and the big Audi felt a little overwhelmed. Those expecting the S8 to be some sort of race track demon need to remember that it is wearing an S badge and not Audi’s far more serious RS moniker. Unlike BMW and Mercedes, which have just one sportier designation — M in the case of BMW and anything badged AMG for Mercedes — Audi bifurcates its upscale models with the RS being the full Monty road weapon while the S line is meant as a half-way step. Although the S8’s suspension is set up far stiffer than the base A8’s, it’s still coddling. An Alpina B7, for instance, might fare better on a track, but, on the road, most will be better off with the S8’s suspension calibration.

As befits an Audi (and I am getting tired of repeating this in every Audi road test), the S8’s cabin just reeks of quality. The Nappa leather is beyond compare and there are tons of carbon fibre and aluminum trim to remind owners how light the S8 is (at least compared with its luxury sedan competition). The seats are an incredible 22-way adjustable. Don’t ask what all 22 ways are — I tried my best to figure them all out, including accessing the MMI computer, but only got up to 16. No matter; the bottom line is that they are comfortable, perfect for long stretches of motoring.

My favourite part of the S8 — the aforementioned Bang & Olufsen audio system — has also been improved, now sporting 19 speakers and an ear-bleeding 1,400 watts. Even when the bass is loud enough to threaten Keith Richards with deafness, there’s virtually none of the distortion that mars other automotive audio systems. Again with the sublime and the ridiculous, but, man, am I glad Audi’s sound engineers are overachievers.

If the S8’s interior lacks anything, it is that certain je ne sais quoi — you know, something like a Cartier clock, a giant-screen TV, anything — that might give prospective Audi owners a reason to boast why they shopped Ingolstadt rather than Stuttgart. As luxe as the cabin is, I just wish it had some standout item that would make those shopping in this segment take notice.

European S8 owners might get that special something in the form of a built-in WLAN hot spot that allows Internet hookup. Canadian cellular service being distinctly slowpokey, the system will not be offered here. It’s enormously handy (in fact, this story was filed from the S8 — yes, from the passenger seat).

I’ve long considered the S8 my favourite Audi. The 2012’s massive performance, new interior and upgraded stereo have only enhanced that opinion. It is very close to that magical blend of performance and luxury that so many of these hot rod land yachts promise. Somebody should notice.

The Audi S8’s active engine mount system is the first such system to minimize vibration by trying to counteract the engine’s own rumblings. Essentially, the engine mount is now a hydraulic actuator that, controlled by a computer, creates a force equal — but opposite — to what the engine (pictured) is trying to transmit to the frame. Audi programs the system’s frequency response in the lab, but the onboard computer also has a feedback loop that measures the amplitude (or force) of the vibrations and adjusts its response accordingly. Essentially, it works much the same as the more common active noise cancellation — which the Audi also has — so that passengers won’t even notice when four of the S8’s eight pistons are offline.